In the loud and showy world of cryptocurrency, it’s rare to find a low-key, yet successful project. DigiByte, a cryptocurrency launched in 2014, is a quiet coin, but one often described with superlatives such as the longest blockchain in the space, most decentralized, and one of the fastest.
The crypto was launched by a group of volunteers without an ICO or any fanfare whatsoever. Yet the project has gone from strength to strength, rising to the top 40 cryptocurrencies by market cap as at the time of writing.
What’s this ‘sleeping giant’ crypto all about? In this guide, we tackle the project’s beginning, its achievements over the years, and why it’s considered one of the most decentralized cryptos.
What’s Digibyte?
Launched in 2014, DigiByte is an open-source, blockchain, and cryptocurrency project that aims to achieve unprecedented speed, high-level security, and nominal to no fees. It is built on three layers that enable it to achieve this: a smart contract layer, a public ledger, and a core part featuring decentralized nodes.
DigiByte: A Timeline
Despite its low-laying reputation, DigiByte is one of the oldest blockchain projects. Founder Jared Tate conceptualized and started working on the project since 2013. Below is a brief history that shows the evolving of the project:
- January 2014 – DigiByte is launched
- April 2017 – DigiByte activates the Segwit software, one of the earliest to do so
- May 2019 – digibyte launches DigiAssets, a second layer technology that allows people to issue tokens, create smart contracts, manage digital identities and so on
Digibyte: Mining, Block Time and Hashing Algorithm
DigiByte mined its genesis block on January 10, 2014. The network initially used proof of work algorithm. However, it later underwent a hard fork and switched to 5 consensus algorithms, namely, Scrypt, SHA256, Groestl and Skein, and Qubit. This move was meant to attain decentralization and increased security.
The network provides a new block every 15 to 18 seconds, which is 40x than Bitcoin’s. This first block time has made DigiByte the longest blockchain in the world currently. Digibyte was also the first-ever cryptocurrency to implement scaling solution Segregated Witness (SegWit), helping it scale even farther.
SegWit helps increase the block size by separating transaction signatures from transactions. This allows more transactions to fit into a block, thus making for faster transactions and lower fees. Moreover, it allows for off-chain possibilities such as cross atomic swaps and single confirmation transactions. This underlines DigiByte’s potential future avenues.
DigiByte’s Security Approach
DigiByte touts its more superior security compared to other cryptocurrencies. And in keeping with its true decentralization goal, the project’s team has sort of left the direction and development of the project to the community.
However, the team has impressively decentralized its mining. One way they have achieved this is by utilizing five mining algorithms. These mining algorithms means that its mining community and power is split into equal and smaller groups. This allows each group an equal share of the process. The digibyte network already has 280,000 plus nodes spread across the globe, as at the time of writing.
DigiByte also employs ‘MultiShield,’ a rebalancing technology to ensure that one hashing algorithm does not dominate the process. Multishield is a more advanced prototype of DigiShield, a technology that the network employed earlier on to prevent miners with more processing power from phasing out those with less.
DigiByte’s Layered Infrastructure
Like we’ve previously mentioned, DigiByte runs its protocol on top of three pieces of technology. Let’s get a closer look:
#1. Bottom Layer (Communications): This is a layer that connects all the network nodes. It facilitates communication between nodes and lays a framework for the rest of the layers.
#2. Middle Layer (Public Ledger): This is a high-level security storage layer for the network’s data. It’s also where mining-related activities are managed, including incentivizing miners.
#3. Top Layer (Applications): This is the layer where users can interact with the blockchain. It features the user interface, application program interface (API) for developers, and customizable tokens.
DigiByte: Coin Supply
DigiByte has a fixed coin supply, as well as release schedule. 21 billion digibyte coins will be emitted within 21 years. Digibyte never held an initial coin offering (ICO), or any sort of pre-mining distribution. From the get-go, the coin was mined and will be until there are no more coins for release. The first coin was mined in 2014 and the last, 2035. In short, the DigiByte blockchain will release 21 billion DGB in a 31-year duration. At the time of writing, 13.2 billion coins are in circulation.
DigiByte: The Current Market Picture
As of July 13, 2020, DGB is trading at $. 0.023256, and it’s ranking at position #34 in market cap. In terms of market cap, DGB stands at $307, 858, 681. DGB has a circulating supply of 13, 237, 575, 421, a total supply of the same value, and a maximum supply of 21 billion. The coin’s all-time high was $0.142889 (Jan 07, 2018) while it’s all-time low was $0.000020 (Dec 20, 2014).
Buying and Storing DGB
You can buy DGB from any of several exchanges, including Bittrex, poloniex, Huobi, KuCoin, HitBTC, Sistemkoin, YoBit, CoinEx, Upbit, and Bitfinex.
If you prefer to mine DGB, the token supports five algorithms for both ASIC and GPU mining.
For storage, you can use DigiByte’s proprietary wallet. Just download it from the website. Alternative options include Coinomi, Exodus, Atomic Wallet, Guarda, Jaxx Liberty, ZelCore, Flare, and trusted offline solutions such as Trezor and Ledger Nano.
Final Thoughts
DigiByte has registered impressive growth since its launch over six years ago. And all this without a dedicated, full-time team working behind it. This is one of the delightfully quirky aspects of the project, right alongside its unique approach to true decentralization by using five different hashing algorithms. Given its track record of firsts, it’s not a stretch to say to definitely expect more from this project in the future.